


Dangerous Comforts

by bomberqueen17



Series: Meet Death Sitting [10]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Baby Witchers, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, Swordfighting, Vomit, reassurance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24038059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: Vesemir deals with developmental milestones in his young pupils.
Relationships: Eskel & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Eskel & Vesemir (The Witcher), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Vesemir
Series: Meet Death Sitting [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639717
Comments: 76
Kudos: 545





	Dangerous Comforts

_1175_

“Again,” Vesemir said, pretending impatience, though he was actually fairly pleased; clearly, Eskel had overcome another developmental plateau in settling into his new mutations, and the gangly teenager set his jaw in determination and repeated the exercise, with even better proficiency. “Good!” Vesemir said, having carefully hoarded this scrap of approval, and watched Eskel’s round face (less round by the day, as he sharpened into puberty; he was going to have quite a square jaw if he survived to adulthood) light up in fervent delight.

That was the best part of the job, probably, when he got to praise them, but it was a dangerous indulgence and he had to be sparing with it.

“All right,” Vesemir said, “now we’ll do it again, now that you have the idea.”

Eskel snapped into the starting position, practically vibrating with focused determination. Probably, Vesemir couldn’t allow him any more praise, but an approving pat to the shoulder at the end might be allowable. Depending on how this iteration of the exercise went.

They were halfway through when there was a commotion from one of the other pairs of practicing students. There were ten boys loosely grouped into his younger cohort-- the two who’d survived the Trials and subsequent training four years ago, the two from three years ago, the three from two years ago, the one from last year, and this year’s two. Vesemir had paired them off, working with five of them while the other five were learning Signs with Andrey. Vesemir was working with Eskel, and he’d put Holda and Berman together, and had paired Geralt with Garvel. Holda and Berman had paused in their work and were staring at Geralt and Garvel.

Geralt was younger and much smaller, but Garvel was inconsistent and timid, and Vesemir had thought they’d be a good pairing and had kept them working together for weeks now. But something Garvel had done had clearly gotten Geralt worked up today, and the younger Witcher was--

Ah, shit, the younger Witcher was probably having his first real adrenaline reaction, and was in an absolute rage, raining attacks on a staggered and startled Garvel. Garvel was bleeding already--

“ _Geralt_ ,” Vesemir said, but it might be too late. Geralt was twice-mutated; they’d run him through the Trials a second time along with last year’s cohort, and he’d nearly died with them and remained undersized, failing to thrive, still struggling with his metabolism. Vesemir had objected as strongly as possible to the second round of mutations (Geralt had come through the first round so well, and so _healthy_ , it seemed deliberate cruelty to throw that away), and to be finally proved right _now_ , after years of trying to help the kid through it _twice_ \-- but Geralt was beyond hearing him now, and Garvel staggered back, lost his sword. Geralt’s next attack took him in the arm and chest and knocked him staggering back and down and Geralt leapt after him, teeth bared, eyes wild--

Vesemir managed to get his weapon between Garvel’s cowering body and Geralt’s weapon, but he knew, grimly, he was only going to succeed in at best refocusing the kid’s frenzy onto himself. Geralt was only fourteen, couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, but he was fast, maybe faster than Vesemir already. And this frenzy might be permanent and fatal. The mutations were unstable for several years, and Geralt’s instability would only be compounded by the second round.

Geralt attacked Vesemir wildly, no awareness in his eyes, and Vesemir set his jaw and determinedly did his best to steer the kid away from the fallen Garvel, who was curled up in a terrified ball and hadn’t realized he’d been saved. _Maybe_ he’d been saved-- Vesemir couldn’t be sure he could actually keep Geralt away from him.

Geralt was fast, and he was strong, and if he weighed any more Vesemir would be in real trouble. And if he couldn’t get himself under control, Vesemir thought, heart sinking, he’d have to be put down.

But he was smart, too, on an instinctive level; his first few attacks on Vesemir were wild but as Vesemir fended them off they turned focused, canny, even as his expression stayed glazed and animalistic. Within a moment, Geralt had managed to snake a blow past an inadequate parry, drawing blood from Vesemir’s arm.

“Geralt,” Vesemir tried again, putting as much command as he could muster, “ _stop_ , the exercise is _over_.” If he couldn't get the kid under control he was going to have to _Aard_ him down-- or worse.

Geralt snarled and darted in again, and Vesemir blocked him but realized immediately that he’d overcommitted to the parry; the attack had been a feint, and Geralt redirected viciously to land another solid blow to Vesemir’s ribs this time, so fast Vesemir had no chance to react, no time for a Sign or--

But, as the sword connected, Geralt let go of the hilt and the sword slid away, robbed of the power that would even with Geralt’s still-slender arm absolutely have been enough to force it through the leather armor and into Vesemir’s body.

Instead the sword clattered on the stones and Geralt reeled back, landing on his hands and knees and scrabbling away, shaking violently. “M-ma-ma-sst- r,” he said, gasping for breath, and managed to scramble up onto his knees, “wh- whh--”

Vesemir swallowed hard, took a shaky breath, and recovered Geralt’s fallen sword from the ground. There was a score in his armor, he could feel it as he moved-- broken skin underneath-- that strike would potentially have wounded him quite badly if Geralt hadn’t dropped the sword at the last instant.

Eskel had grabbed Garvel and hauled him out of the way, and was standing in front of the fallen boy, pale and terrified, sword up defensively. But he wasn’t anywhere near as frightened as Geralt, who very clearly knew he’d lost control and equally clearly didn’t understand what had happened to him.

But he’d stopped himself, he’d pulled the blow, and hadn’t irrevocably injured anyone. Vesemir sighed in relief, and went and crouched down in front of him. “Geralt,” he said.

There were horrified tears on Geralt’s face but he was holding himself upright with all of his willpower, his skinny little body shaking. He couldn’t speak, and had his teeth gritted, staring up beseechingly at Vesemir. His eyes darted to the blood on Vesemir’s arm, and then went back up to his face, and then closed, scrunching tightly shut.

“Please,” Eskel said, low and desperate and bitten-off.

There were a lot of parts of this lifestyle that were horrible, Vesemir thought, but maybe this was the worst part. The boys all knew that if you lost control, if you went bad, you had to be put down. They’d all seen it happen. And they knew who usually did the deed, all right.

Vesemir put down his sword, reached out, and grabbed Geralt by the shoulders, pulling the boy’s skinny, shudder-wracked body against his own. “You stopped,” he said, into Geralt’s ear. “You _stopped_ , Geralt. It’s all right.”

Geralt sobbed and shook, clinging to Vesemir’s chest like a little child. Like the little child he’d been, when he’d first come here, three years old and unable to understand. “It’s all right,” Vesemir repeated, as Geralt sobbed again. “It’s all right. You stopped. You stopped.”

Varin had paused his own lessons and come over, leaving his students-- all the younger boys-- standing around gawking. “He stopped,” Varin said, sounding skeptical.

Vesemir looked up at him over Geralt’s shoulder. “He stopped,” he said flatly. “It’s adrenaline, Varin. His first real adrenaline response.”

“Is the other boy all right?” Varin asked, turning to look. Eskel was still standing protectively in front of Garvel. Garvel had uncurled a little, and was cradling an arm that might be broken, but his head was undamaged. He could heal, from that.

“Well enough,” Vesemir said. Geralt had stopped sobbing and was just shaking now, silently. Varin eyed Vesemir disapprovingly, giving a significant look to where Vesemir had his hand curled around the back of Geralt’s skinny neck, cradling the boy’s head against his shoulder.

Varin thought Vesemir was too soft on the boys. That was why Varin taught the youngest boys, before and during the Trials, and Vesemir the older ones who’d already gone through them, because Varin genuinely believed that Vesemir wouldn’t be able to be hard enough on the littles to give them what they needed to survive. Varin also seemed to believe that it would break Vesemir to work with the littles and then lose so many of them to the Trials, but that was because Varin was a self-important prick. He certainly had no compunction about letting Vesemir most often have to be the one who put down boys who'd gone bad.

Vesemir hated Varin, and it was mutual, and that was fine; their working relationship was adequate and their personal relationship didn’t have to be close. But if Varin thought they were going to put Geralt down now, when the boy had very clearly hauled himself back from the brink on his own, they were going to have some kind of a disagreement, both personal _and_ professional.

In a moment, Geralt pulled away suddenly, and Vesemir let him go, then grabbed the back of his padded jerkin to hold him up as the boy vomited onto the flagstones so hard his arms almost gave out. Vesemir kept his hand fisted in the back of the boy’s jerkin-- Geralt was so underweight, there was plenty of extra fabric to hang onto-- until the heaving stopped, and then pulled him easily out of the mess and set him on his knees in a clean segment of flagstone.

“You’ll be all right, boy,” he said. Geralt drooled wretchedly, glassy-eyed and miserable; he was going to collapse any time now. But he’d live. Vesemir got to his feet, retrieved his and Geralt’s weapons, and turned to the collection of boys of all ages, all staring up at him with stunned gazes. “Well? That’s an adrenaline reaction, boys. You’ll have to learn to master it. As Geralt did: he pulled himself back and he didn’t kill anyone.”

Varin let his breath out in a sigh that sounded like resignation, and turned away. “Come on, children,” he said, “pull yourselves together. Back to work.”

“Show me your arm,” Vesemir said wearily to Garvel. This wasn’t the first time this boy had gotten mauled by a classmate, which was too bad for him but also potentially spoke to a lesson he might not have learned about overambitiously baiting his comrades when he couldn’t actually defend himself against the rage that provoked. Vesemir had noted the beginnings of an unhealthy dynamic where Garvel had thought Geralt’s small size meant he was someone who could be pushed around, and this might have come from that.

No matter, now; if there was a lesson to be learned, either Garvel would learn it or he wouldn’t. The arm was possibly broken, but not severely, and Vesemir got the boy up and sent him off to the infirmary. Meanwhile Geralt was still hunched miserably on the flagstones, with Eskel crouched next to him murmuring worriedly.

The three boys from that year were all quite close. Geralt was charismatic and outgoing but a little bit sly, Eskel reserved but level-headed, and Gweld was enthusiastic and perhaps too easily-led. The result was that Eskel, who should absolutely know better, kept getting roped into wild pranks that Geralt came up with and Gweld carried out, being both the largest and most gullible of them. Geralt nearly being murdered had slowed them down only a little; they were proper terrors, the lot of them, and Vesemir alternated finding it endearing with finding it fucking annoying.

“Holda,” Vesemir said to the other two of his students, who were still gawking. “Berman. Back to your drills.”

They murmured a ragged chorus of _yes, master_ s and went back to the practice he’d set them. He came over to Eskel and Geralt, and crouched in front of them again.

Eskel set his jaw mutinously, but Geralt sat up straighter and swallowed hard, putting himself in a proper meditation position and visibly steeling himself.

“Master Vesemir,” he said, voice hoarse from vomiting. He stank of terror, but also of horror at himself. He absolutely knew that he’d had a potential killing blow. He knew, completely, what he’d almost done. He knew what he was capable of now. But, hopefully, he also knew he could control it.

“He _stopped_ ,” Eskel said, low but intense, barely audible. “You don’t have to kill him, Master-- he stopped.”

“I know he stopped,” Vesemir said. “It’s why I’m alive.”

Geralt swallowed hard; he was still fighting nausea, Vesemir could tell. “You said it’s adrenaline,” Eskel said.

“If it wasn’t, we’d know by now,” Vesemir said. They’d all seen what happened when the mutations went bad. Though, this cohort hadn’t seen any real dramatic effects-- most of their comrades had died, to be sure, but they’d mostly gone immediately. Only a few had lingered, and none had suffered the cruelest of fates, where they seemed recovered and then went berserk.

Vesemir had seen plenty of that in his day. Only a couple of times, but one only needed to see it a couple of times. And it was on the tip of his tongue to reassure them, that they were past the danger of that kind of fate, but then he held it back, because, well. It was rare for a boy to undergo the Trials a second time, like Geralt, and Vesemir honestly didn’t know how long it would take for Geralt to be able to be sure he was out of danger. His metabolism should’ve settled by now, but he was still struggling with that-- his appetite and his capacity didn’t match, and he sometimes was ravenous and sometimes had to fight to get food into himself. Both Gweld and Eskel had started to visibly mature, to shoot up and put on muscle, and now Holda, the sole survivor from last year, who’d gone through the Trials alongside Geralt’s second go, was starting to shoot up, too, and still Geralt stayed skinny.

But the adrenaline response-- that was a mature Witcher trait, hard to control but invaluable in long tough fights.

Vesemir pushed himself to his feet, feeling not for the first time that maybe he was getting too old for this shit. He reached over, pulled Geralt to his feet, and steadied him as he wobbled. Eskel leapt up next to him, hovering next to his other elbow. “Take him to the kitchen, Eskel,” Vesemir said. “Petr will know what he needs.”

Varin wasn’t watching, so Vesemir ruffled each of the boys’ hair in turn. “You’ve both done well today,” he said, quietly enough that the other two boys wouldn’t hear. “You’ll be all right.”

It was as much for his own benefit as theirs, he knew that. Of course he had no idea whether either of them would be all right, but the way each skinny face slanted from fear to faith was a balm to his abraded soul. A dangerous addiction, this, but surely a man could be allowed a little tipple now and then. 

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat inspired by [this wonderful artwork](https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/617366402572091392/jackofallplagues-baby-geralt-eskel-3-the), which I think is part of a series I haven't looked for all of, but I did find it amusing to think of the boys as "The Terrors Of Kaer Morhen".  
> ______
> 
> I've fallen horribly behind on answering comments. I kind of had to give up on something, and I've prioritized writing time over comment-answering, but please understand, the comments are basically keeping me sane in all of this.  
> Er, insofar as I _am_ sane, which is debatable.


End file.
